Knowing Mind

In an ancient Buddhist sutra, a student asks: “O Master of the Secret, what is Enlightenment?” The Master replies, “It means knowing your own mind as it really is. This is unexcelled, complete, perfect enlightenment, in which there is nothing at all that can be attained.”

So this is what it’s all about: “knowing the mind as it really is.” But what is it, really? We come to Zen practice because our minds are troubled; we seek peace; we want to know. We are intrigued by enlightenment, to which Zen meditation is supposed to lead, and we hope to attain it, to experience it. Hopefully, we will, and afterwards everything will be unceasingly okay.

But the Master says that there is nothing to be attained, that enlightenment is “knowing the mind.” Most of us, however, are left with a nagging question: “Exactly how do I accomplish this?”

This question is the basis for many well-known teaching stories. The following is one of my favorites. It concerns the Indian Zen Master Bodhidharma and his Chinese disciple, Hui-k’o:

Hui-k’o said, “My mind is not yet at peace. Please set it at peace for me, Master!” Bodhidharma
responded, “Bring me your mind, and I will set it at peace for you.” Hui-k’o answered, “I have searched
for it, but I cannot find it.” The Master responded, “your mind has been set at peace.”

Hui-k’o was a Chinese monk who, after many years of practice, came to study with the Indian master Bodhidharma, the first Zen ancestor in China. Bodhidharma, however, turned him away. Hui-k’o, after standing outside all night in the snow and being turned away again in the morning, cut off his arm to show Bodhidharma the depth of his desire to study with him. He was then accepted as Bodhidharma’s disciple and eventually became his dharma heir. Hui-k’o serves in Zen lore as the quintessential example of total commitment!

The exchange between Bodhidharma and Hui-k’o cited above, however, occurred after Hui-k’o had been studying with the Indian master for some time. After finally finding a true master, convincing him of his deep commitment, and studying with him intimately, Hui-k’o was still not at peace. He must have been deeply discouraged when he asked, “My mind is not yet at peace. Please set it at peace for me, Master.”

Don’t we all know this feeling? We certainly did when we began to practice Zen, because lack of peace and contentment drove us to this path. As soon as we started to sit zazen regularly, our lives smoothed out a little. We became more stable. Things that once annoyed us no longer did, and as it became clear that Zen was our path, zazen became a bigger and bigger part of our lives.

However, no spiritual path is without disappointments and pitfalls. Perhaps we’ve practiced and studied for many months, or even years, yet we seem to be making no progress. Or maybe we lose a loved one, or a job, and we find ourselves falling into despair. Maybe we’ve been treated badly, and anger comes up. Then it builds and builds as we keep chewing on it for hours (or even weeks or months), unable to let it go. How many times have we re-cycled ourselves in these situations? Perhaps those of us who’ve practiced for some time begin to brood over our lack of spiritual progress and become profoundly discouraged. Haven’t we then longed for the same peace that Hui-k’o is seeking?

Bodhidharma’s response to Hui-k’o’s longing is, “Bring me your mind, and I will set it at peace for you.” He directs Hui-k’o back into himself, for Bodhidharma knows that the answers to our difficulties are always found by looking within. Hui-k’o must understand what mind is and what is causing his pain, and he must know it directly, for himself, before he can be at peace. All Buddhist teachers know this; they know that a teacher’s understanding cannot settle a student’s doubt or ease their pain. Shakyamuni Buddha, when asked by his disciples what they needed to do to awaken, pointed in front of him and said, “These are forests; these are roots of trees; sit and meditate.” Similarly, Bodhidharma directs Hui’k’o inward to find the answer to his difficulty.

Hui-k’o responds to Bodhidharma’s “Bring me your mind, and I will set it at peace for you” by saying: “I have searched for it, but I cannot find it.” I sometimes wonder how much time elapsed between Bodhidharma’s injunction to find the mind and Hui-k’o’s giving up and saying, “I cannot find it.” Maybe this whole exchange took place in a few moments during morning tea, but Hui’k’o had been examining the nature of mind through sitting zazen ever since he became Bodhidharma’s disciple. Maybe he went back to his cushion and searched for the mind for months before he gave up, went back to the master, and said, “I cannot find it.” In any case, this “giving up” came as a result of long, serious inquiry, and is crucial, for Bodhidharma then says: “Your mind has been set at peace.” With this “not finding,” the search ends. If there’s nothing to find, there’s nothing to fix, so everything must be okay as it is. In this moment of realization, everything manifests as perfect and complete as it is, deep understanding arises, and peace manifests.

This same issue is addressed by the following exchange in a Chinese Zen text called A Dialogue on the Contemplation Extinguished:

The Disciple asks: ‘What is it that is called ‘mind’? How do we put the mind at ease?’ The Master
answers: ‘You need not suppose a mind, nor need you particularly endeavor to put one at ease. That can
be spoken of as putting the mind at ease.’

To know the mind in this way is to know it as it is, as “no mind,” as we say in Zen. What does this mean? It means that what we call mind is not a fixed, permanent entity that we can isolate, purify, and heal. What we call “mind” is an impermanent, constantly changing process. Hui’k’o found nothing when he searched for mind; he experienced only thoughts arising and passing away. Viewed in this way, what is there to heal? Thoughts arise. Thoughts pass away. This is the nature of thoughts, both negative and positive. Even if we fall into a persistent, negative state of mind, it, too, will pass away. In the words of Zen Master Dogen: “No matter how bad a state of mind you get into, if you hold out over the long run, the clouds will disappear and the autumn winds will cease.”

Liberation — and in Buddhism, the only liberation is liberation from suffering – manifests when we deeply understand the nature of what we call mind. Thoughts — or mental states, or whatever we want to call them — arise and pass away because it is their nature to do so. This process is occurring moment by moment. The practice of zazen puts us on intimate terms with “mind as it truly is” moment by moment. Allowing this process to happen with as little interference as possible, allowing thoughts to come and go, is sometimes called, “according with the natural condition of mind.” When we don’t accord with this natural condition, we create great suffering for ourselves.

Let me use the following as an example. When I was studying with my master, Dainin Katagiri, in Minneapolis years ago, I supported myself by painting houses. One day, I was coming home from work on a Friday afternoon in a particularly good mood. I had left early and had plenty of time to take a leisurely shower, have a nice dinner, and relax with the paper before I went to the zendo for evening sitting. Life was good!

As I drove into the alleyway behind my apartment building, however, I found the way blocked by a large truck with its back-end open. I glanced over to the nearest garage and saw three men sitting on boxes smoking cigarettes. I looked over at them, raised my hands questioningly, and asked, “Hey, could you guys move the truck so I can get through?” They looked through me, as if I didn’t exist, and then turned back toward each other and continued smoking.

This is not right, I thought. In Minneapolis, most of the streets are separated by alleys; garage-doors face toward them. Everyone knows not to block the alleys. It quickly became clear that, however, that these guys had no intention of moving, and I got angry. Or, as the early Buddhist texts say: Anger arose in me! I put my car in reverse and pulled back into the street, wishing I had a big, armor-plated truck that I could ram into the back of theirs and push the damn thing all the way to the other end of the alley! I visualized the three of them running out between their truck and mine and smashing them, too. In a few seconds, I was hopping mad, jamming my car into first gear and squealing away down to the corner. I’d have to go around the block and get to my garage from the other end of the alley.

Normally, I would have continued raging, pulling into my garage with a screech and carrying that anger into the house, maybe even slamming the back door, stomping up the stairs, and bitching at my roommate because he hadn’t vacuumed the apartment as he said he would!

But this time, I didn’t. After I screeched away from the alley, I thought, “Wow, are you angry. Here you were in a great mood coming home from work early, and all it took was a couple of guys blocking the alley to send you into a rage, on a tire-screeching tear down the street. Isn’t that silly?” As soon as I said this to myself, the anger dissolved. I started chuckling and calmly drove down the street to the other end of the alley. I thought about how quickly anger came up and how quickly it went away. Once I acknowledged it, it dissolved. “How wonderful,” I thought; “I don’t have to be a slave to this.” Anger is amazingly brief, if you let it be. I thought of the many Buddhist teachings I’d read, such as. “It is the nature of all mental states to arise and pass away; they are empty of own-being and have no substance in and of themselves.” As I drove down the street, I thought, “So this is what that means.”

That moment was pivotal for me, for in it, I realized the nature of anger, and by extension, all mental states. It is their nature to arise and pass away. What is behind them? Nothing. Who is thinking them? No one. They are just thoughts arising and passing away. As I drove into the other end of the alley and saw the truck still sitting at the far end, the anger was gone. I pulled into my garage and thought, “How quickly that played out, and now, I’m free of it.”

In yet another ancient teaching story, the third Zen ancestor in China, Seng Ts’an, addresses the issue in this way:

A monk asked Seng ts’an, “Master, show me the way to liberation.”

Seng ts’an replied, “Who binds you?

The monk responded, “No one binds me.”

Seng ts’an said, “Then why do you seek liberation?”

I love these ancient koans. They are concrete examples of the means used by Zen masters to bring their disciples to moments of insight into the nature of their difficulty and the way out of it. When we say “Ah!” to ourselves after reading or hearing one of these stories, we are responding to their “rightness” from deep within.

When we begin Zen practice, we regard enlightenment, or awakening, or realization – whatever we want to call it – as something outside of our selves, some mental state or condition that we need to attain. We want to get something we don’t have, to acquire something we think we lack. But this is not the case, and these ancient stories point us toward this understanding. I heard Dainin Katagiri say on many different occasions, “You are perfect exactly the way you are.” But then he would always add, “But there’s plenty of room for improvement!” For me, the greatest “room for improvement” lies in cultivating an understanding of what keeps us from realizing that we are perfect exactly the way we are. This means knowing the nature of mind and how it functions. According to this understanding, awakening means stripping away delusion, not acquiring something special. As the sutra says, “there is nothing at all that can be attained.”

How do we cultivate knowing the mind? The Fukanzazengi (Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen) is our basic instruction for zazen (sitting meditation). In it, Zen Master Dogen says,

Put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the
backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away,
and your original face will manifest. If you want such a thing, get to work on such a thing immediately.

“Getting to work on such a thing” means to sit down and practice zazen. Turning the light and shining it inward means to let things unfold, not by carrying on an intellectual inquiry or trying to puzzle things out but by just sitting zazen. If we practice diligently in this way, we come to know mind “as it really is” by just sitting still in the middle of it, right in the middle of thoughts arising and passing away. We begin to “know the inside from the inside,” and gradually our understanding of who we are and how we are deepens and our true nature is revealed.

About Nonin Chowaney

Rev. Nonin Chowaney, an American Zen Master, is a Buddhist priest trained in the Soto tradition of Zen Master Dogen. Nonin was ordained by Rev. Dainin Katagiri in Minnesota and has studied at Tassajara Zen Monastery in California and in Japan at Zuio-ji and Shogo-ji Monasteries. He received formal Dharma Transmission from Rev. Katagiri and has been certified to teach by him and by the Soto Zen Church in Japan.
Nonin lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where he is Abbot of Nebraska Zen Center / Heartland Temple. He is a regular speaker at many schools, colleges, and universities and leads Zen Buddhist retreats and workshops throughout the United States.
Nonin is also an accomplished brush calligrapher. He learned the art while training in Japan and has been practicing it for many years. His work hangs in homes and Zen Temples throughout the world.

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About Nonin Chowaney

Rev. Nonin Chowaney, an American Zen Master, is a Buddhist priest trained in the Soto tradition of Zen Master Dogen. Nonin was ordained by Rev. Dainin Katagiri in Minnesota and has studied at Tassajara Zen Monastery in California and in Japan at Zuio-ji and Shogo-ji Monasteries. He received formal Dharma Transmission from Rev. Katagiri and has been certified to teach by him and by the Soto Zen Church in Japan.
Nonin lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where he is Abbot of Nebraska Zen Center / Heartland Temple. He is a regular speaker at many schools, colleges, and universities and leads Zen Buddhist retreats and workshops throughout the United States.
Nonin is also an accomplished brush calligrapher. He learned the art while training in Japan and has been practicing it for many years. His work hangs in homes and Zen Temples throughout the world.

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